The “Red London” group

A factual briefing for the labour movement

Workers’ Liberty www.workersliberty.org February 2019 Red London in their own words

RInedt Lroonddonu isc at Fiaocen book page which deploys unevidenced smears rather than political argument against people they politically oppose. Its administrators are . Red London also builds support for contemporary Stalinist state formations (e.g. North Korea, China) and praises “High ” (the USSR in the 1930s and 40s). The page appears to be strongly aligned to the Communist Party of Britain and its paper the Morning Star (many posts share and defend Morning Star articles). They are also Labour supporters and members. Red London’s favoured “hate targets” are Trotskyists, anarchists and “Radical Liberals”. “RadLibs” are people who are tagged with caricatured identity politics and support for “political correctness”. This hostile positioning involves no useful criticism; rather it is a way to promote an anti-liberal (small “l”) and “masculine” politics. Akin to trolling, their attacks come out as piss-taking banter and/or “working-class” identity politics including a more disturbing “hard man” imagery, and gratuitous viciousness. We are politically concerned by the growing audience for the idea that murderous totalitarian Stalinist regimes, both historically and in the contemporary world, are somehow authentically socialist. However, as unpleasant as that is, most of that kind of material can be politically critiqued. In contrast, since 2016 Red London have made a specific attack on Workers’ Liberty which is straightforward defamation, accusing us of vile and criminal activity. Through the medium of meme-making and “jokes” and often by direct accusation, Workers’ Liberty has been accused of condoning or even actively promoting paedophilia or child . This accusation is ludicrous and without foundation (see bit.ly/2SueNHk). Whoever is responsible for this is engaging in reckless behaviour. Yet the accusation has been shared, promoted and cynically used in one form or another by others and the “story” has spread. Why do these ridiculous stories work? Because they speak to a sectarian mindset on the broader left that allows Trotskyists, or the AWL, or others, to be lied about without consideration for the consequences. The AWL has taken action to defend itself by reporting these defamations to Facebook, the police and the Labour Party, and now by publishing this briefing. If would be negligent not to take action to protect ourselves, and especially because many of us are parents, teachers, social workers, or youth workers, or have experienced sexual abuse in our lives. Our complaints have been obstructed by the fact that Red London’s output has been anonymously produced and that anonymity has been protected by its friendship network. However such cliques were bound to splinter. This has happened over a recent (justifiable) accusation of transphobia against Red London. Some members of the clique fell out with others, and were accused of trashing a flat in South London at a party on 8 November 2018. In the fall out, certain people were identified by their former friends as being linked to Red London. This briefing brings together images and other evidence to show how this group and the politics it promotes operate. We also publish what information we have about the identities of the people directly involved; this leans on the information from the recent fall out. There is some evidence here of people who are, or have allowed themselves to be, associated with or influenced by Red London’s culture (for example the practice of using a “vigilance salute”). We also publish this because we believe that people who make unsubstantiated defamations such as the one that has been made against the AWL are a poison in the labour movement. If they are allowed to get away with it they will take their method of reckless lying further; it will spread, and it will become increasingly hard to tackle. We urge everyone who has been associated with Red London in the past, even by simply liking or sharing their posts, and even if they agree with their general political views, to actively disassociate themselves from the group.

RBeda Lconkdgonr iso nuot na md embership group and as we have said, its Facebook page is anonymous. As far as we know, it is a clique which caters to or helps to cohere a network of more-or-less like-minded people, some of whom will not support the extreme Stalinism of the core clique. This video gives some idea of the “attitude” — http://bit.ly/2RBvPlF. Some people around Red London will be members of the Communist Party of Britain, or regular readers of the Morning Star . But Red London’s Stalinism is cruder than that of the Morning Star . This is not proof, but people who regularly share Red London posts seem to be associated with the Young Communist League, or Communist Parties elsewhere in the world and/or the RMT union. Red London poses as a loyal champion of and is intolerant of any dissent from this. Instead it has 1 helped to drive a “bunker mentality” in some sections of the Labour left — “if you are not with Corbyn 100% on everything, you are against him”. Red London often hints towards a “Blue Labour” perspective. This argues Labour should focus on the white working class, and specifically alleged working-class opinions which are defined as anti-immigration and in favour of “cracking down” on crime. Red London are passionately in favour of Brexit (and contemptuous of “Remainiacs”). They are broadly on the side of Putin in international disputes. They are closely involved in Kurdish solidarity — on the side of the PKK. Red London do a lot of reposting from other Facebook meme pages (they may have the same administrators). For example, ‘Tenacious Tankie Memes’ and ‘Grand Marshall Corbyn's Patriotic Meme Collective’. Probably very few people are administrators or content producers for the Red London page. Many more people are or were friends and associates of Red London in “real life”. After the November 2018 fall out the following people were identified as Red London associates: Robert Daw (sometimes Rob O’Hara on Facebook), Dominic Cerasoli (Lewisham Momentum Political Education Officer,) and Alex Norton (Sandy Hale), a writer for the Morning Star. Daw and Hale are members of the RMT. A widely-shared Facebook post gives some of the details: bit.ly/2ScmCNC. We should point out that the report of the “trashing” of the party by Red London was denied. The public fall-out occurred on 11 November 2018. Red London have popularised a uniform — a red balaclava — among the group of mainly young Stalinists which forms their gang. The red balaclava “flips” the anarchist “black bloc” uniform and is symbolically linked to fighting the far right. The aesthetic also fits with their aim to “make confrontational interventions into socialist struggles”. Red London’s anti-fascist promotions, as for the broad left, have recently focused on opposing Tommy Robinson and the DFLA. But Red London’s favoured position echoes the vigilantism of the far right — “Paedo gangs and racists off our streets” is one of the banners these young Stalinists carry (see image on page 9) . If this is an attempt to “talk” to working-class people and football fans who follow Robinson, it is both inept and dangerous. Much the same could be said for the use of the England flag in Red London’s iconography. The way to fight the nationalist poison which fuels the DFLA is to glorify a “Communist” version of nationalism? Surely not! The Stalinist milieu, with Red London at the extreme end, has infected a layer of prominent, younger Momentum activists. Red London helped to popularise with that layer a campaign of so-called “vigilance” against “wreckers”, “cranks”, and “Trotskyites.” Some of those young Momentum activists may also be associated with the Young Communist League. Others will not be but have gone in for Stalinist iconography (e.g. Soviet art) on their social media as kitsch symbols of a shared political identity. For two years, continuing today on the Red London site, Momentum and left-wing Corbyn supporting Labour Party members have photographed themselves on social media holding up an index finger (a symbol also popularised by Islamists, meaning “one god”). Many would have viewed the symbol as an expression of loyalty to Momentum, for the Corbyn leadership and against the right-wing witch-hunt against Corbyn. For the more politically conscious Stalinists it has been accompanied by the phrases “Vigilance” and “Clear them out” or “Clear out Hitler’s Agents”, a phrase used by Stalinists against Trotskyists during World War Two. Bit-by-bit, especially as Momentum closed down its internal democracy, the symbol became associated with a growing witch-hunt against , including the AWL. Against the AWL In October 2016 Red London created a false Facebook identity in the name of Mark Osborn, someone who has long been associated with the AWL, then published a fake story linked to this false identity. The story says that in 2003 the AWL boycotted an anti-war demo to organise a “paedophile rally”. Further, that Mark Osborn (originally named in the story but later identified only as “a Lewisham teacher”) was an activist in the Paedophile Information Exchange (see image 1a and 1b, page 5) . This story is completely fabricated and ludicrous: no such “rally” happened, we boycotted no anti-war demo. Mark Osborn had no connection at all to PIE. Red London used a reference to a 2003 two-part article by Gerry Byrne (in fact about how to protect children from abuse) to fabricate the story. Since then they have used a few snippets of the article in many other memes to “prove” we are in favour of paedophilia. Byrne’s article can be found here: bit.ly/2TqHJNd. Mark Osborn is indeed a teacher, though not in Lewisham. He is also a parent. He reported the smear to Facebook and the police. The police were only able to question RMT organiser Bill Paterson, who we knew to have been associated with Red London from his own words in 2015 (see page 10) . Paterson told the police that he was no longer connected to RL. Mark has never found out who is responsible for the fake identity and post. Red London took the post down.

In July 2017 a Facebook page called ‘Burning Down the House with Andy Burnham’ (a page which we believe was linked to Red London) used “pseudo-quotes” from Byrne’s 2003 article and another article against child abuse (bit.ly/2Bg9ZLw). The post has since been taken down ( see image 2, page 5 ). The post had racist implications as it attempted to link Sacha Ismail, an AWL member and a man with an Asian/Muslim background, with the issue of paedophilia. That is, it hints at Muslim grooming gangs. Similarly, a post from around the same time (image 3, page 5) shows the hand of a darker-skinned person holding the hand of a light-skinned child — again with a snippet from the 2003 article. Sacha reported the post to police, it was reported to Facebook by a third party, and was also later reported to Momentum in the context of the 2018 Lewisham Momentum AGM (see below). Andy Burnham was informed about this page using his name. 2 Also in July 2017, Red London put up a post making fun of a 15 year old for raising money for Workers’ Liberty’s website (image 4, page 6) . His mother reports: “Followers of the page added comments including a suggestion to call the RSPCA about the dog’s welfare, and sexualised comments suggesting that people were getting my son involved in politics in order to sexually abuse him. Some of these comments were written in a jokey style, as though the sexual abuse of a teenager is a fit subject for humour.” After numerous complaints, including to the RMT, the post was taken down. In February 2018, at London Young Labour’s conference, Red London’s demonisation of the AWL became connected to a report of historic sexual assault (issues, process of investigation, reported on here: bit.ly/2S168r5). (See image 5 and caption on page 6 for more explanation.) Some young members and friends of the AWL experienced face-to-face abuse. For instance one young gay woman member of the AWL was told, “one nonce, one noose” (nonce is a word with homophobic connotations); another was called “CIA paedo”. This abuse came from the same Robert Daw who, as we said above, was recently “outed” as Red London by his former friends. The abuse was reported to the Labour Party but no action has, to date, been taken. In the same period, the ‘Check Their Minutes’ blog was set up. The content, which includes snippets from some of the AWL’s internal minutes “spiced up” to try to show that the AWL is a “cult” etc., suggests it is linked to Red London. It is worth emphasising that spates of online witch-hunting against the AWL have always coincided with elections. In the case of London Young Labour, there were elections to a committee in which AWL members and friends were standing. Other elections into which Red London and/or Check Their Minutes (and apparently connected groups and individuals) have intervened are the AGM of Lewisham Momentum (April 2018) and the elections to the Executive of the National Union of Students (April 2018 annual conference). During NUS conference the (anonymous) Twitter account ‘Left Women Against Abuse Apologism’ drew on ‘Check Their Minutes’ stock of AWL internal minutes to try to “prove” Sahaya James, who was standing in the Presidential election, was a member of the AWL (as it happens, she isn’t and has never been). In run up to the AGM of Lewisham Momentum in April 2018, Workers’ Liberty were accused of giving transphobes a platform. This was said to have happened at a local Momentum public meeting called to discuss reform of the Gender Recognition Act, in which support for self-declaration of gender was very clear! Excerpts from a secret recording of that meeting were published on ‘Check Their Minutes’. A statement by speaker Maria Exall (TUC LGBT committee) corrected this false account: bit.ly/2QayDFy. (See image 6, page 6.)

Also prior to the AGM, a Twitter “call out” by a Lewisham Young Labour committee member accused the AWL of many things, including transphobia and, again, support for paedophilia. She urged people to come and get rid of the AWL from Lewisham Momentum (see image 7, page 6) . About the same time, a post on Red London carried an image photoshopped so as to seem to show Sacha Ismail standing next to Jimmy Savile (see page 9 ). Also around the same time Red London posted a screen shot of a postscript to an article from 1997 about ‘Megan’s Law’. It argued a commonsense socialist view — against child abuse, and against vigilantism — but it was “angled” as condoning child abuse. Many of those mobilised for Lewisham Momentum’s AGM had no previous record of local activity in Momentum or the Labour Party; many had been mobilised simply to vote out members of the existing steering group who were standing again for different roles. For example, one member of the elected committee later told a friend of the AWL that they did not live in Lewisham and had no intention of being involved in Lewisham Momentum. With the room overflowing the meeting ended in a debacle with an impromptu election for a committee held in the public bar of a local pub, an election and committee immediately recognised as valid by Momentum nationally. (More on this, see bit.ly/2wLndQ0) After the meeting, Red London made an intervention praising the defeat for “Trotskyism” (see image 8, page 6) . There has been so far, no response on the online abuse from the official Lewisham Momentum group, or from Momentum nationally. Indeed the “result” was an opportunity for left witch-hunters to celebrate (see image 9, page 7) . As we have said, one of the current chairs of this Momentum group, Bill Paterson, has publicly admitted to being a close associate of Red London in the past (see page 10) . He now says he now has nothing to do with them, and we have no grounds to dispute that. Dominic Cerasoli, said to be a Red London associate, is the political education officer of Lewisham Momentum. Red London is not a membership organisation, it is a clique. Many friendship and political affinities connect its people into organising a witch-hunt against the AWL. That is how it works.

Red London have continued to attack the AWL. For example, in July 2018 they photoshopped a banner from a demonstration against Brexit at Labour Live, so that it read “Free Ian Huntley”, then posted it from a “mocked up” Facebook account for Keith Road (the pen name of an AWL member) (see image 10, page 7) . [Ian Huntley was the “Soham murderer” of 2002].

In September 2018 Red London had an online exchange with an AWL comrade after some of their sympathisers abused us in a south London pub. That comrade and others in the AWL and their friends were called “paedos”. In the course of the online exchange, the AWL member was subjected to homophobic abuse. He was called a nonce, a deviant, and fun was made of his “rainbow braces” ( see image 11, page 8 ). It is worth noting this fracas took place a full two years since the first defamation about paedophilia was made about the AWL. Secondly it occurred in the course of an official social event for Lewisham Young Labour and Goldsmiths Labour Club. Those two things alarmed us. Complaints were made to Lewisham Deptford Labour Party and recognised Lewisham Momentum Secretary, Goldsmiths Student Union and the RMT. Apologies and promises that nothing like this would happen again were asked for. The serving youth officer of Lewisham Deptford CLP, Alfie Purslow, was involved in the chanting, as was a young member of that local party and the RMT, Rhys Harmer. Harmer soon apologised in writing to those present, but Purslow has not. Kierin Offlands, who is Secretary of Goldsmiths Labour Society, was also present 3 at the social event but not involved in any chanting. However, he subsequently “liked” a vile Red London post about The Clarion and Sacha Ismail (shown below). Offlands then removed his “like” but has neither apologised to Sacha or The Clarion, as requested, nor explained himself. Around the same time, in an exchange with Sacha Ismail (AWL) on Facebook, Sacha was called a paedo by probable Red London associates (see page 8) . Then on 26 October Red London posted a meme attacking The Clarion magazine and Sacha Ismail, calling them nonces etc (see statement and image below) . Once again, Red London’s intervention coincided with elections! This time, to Lewisham Deptford Labour Party Constituency Executive Committee, in which a slate of “official” Lewisham Momentum supporters were standing against the Deptford Left Caucus. At the end of January 2019 we received an anonymous letter personally addressed to one of our office staff alleging the AWL was protecting paedophiles. The letter may be from a crank, a far-right activist or someone trying to spook us. Whatever, it is an indication of the continuation of low-level-menacing effects of the internet smear campaign against us. All this should be of great concern to anyone who wants a viable, democratic, healthy left. • Further reading: www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-11-30/new-stalinism

February 2019

“This vile abuse must not be tolerated” — a statement from The Clarion’s Editorial Board On 26 October, the ‘Red London’ Facebook page posted a meme attacking The Clarion and one of our editors, Sacha Ismail, more than implying that we and Sacha in particular support child abuse. It calls us ‘nonces’ and The Clarion ‘de - viant materials’, urging people to sign a (non-existent) petition to ‘stop Sacha’. Hard as it may be for those unfamiliar with Red London to believe, it has a long history of this kind of shameful abuse and horrible and totally untruthful attacks on individuals. Red London has targeted Sacha in this way several times before. Its previous attacks have involved racist imagery, in - cluding a brown adult’s hand holding a white child’s (see below). And this kind of repeated targeting of a man of Asian/Muslim, specifically partly Pakistani, heritage is itself telling, in the context of current racist mobilisations under the pretext of the real issue of child sex abuse gangs. The target - ing of Sacha is even more disgusting given that, as the Red London people know, he has a young child. As it does frequently, Red London uses the word ‘nonce’. It regularly uses this term about not just child abusers, but oth - ers it is simply trying to intimidate. This kind of language should be unacceptable on the left and in the workers’ move - ment. The term also has a clear homophobic history and overtones. The Clarion’s coverage of issues connected to child sexual abuse has only ever been implacably opposed to it. This is irrelevant to Red London, who are – once again – happy to trivialise this serious issue and damage serious attempts to tackle it as part of their drive to witch-hunt left-wing opponents. This is also, typically, grossly insensitive to those who have suffered abuse, trivialising it for a ‘funny’ meme to score (a) political points. As the facts described above illustrate, though Red London claims to be left-wing it often acts more like part of the far right. It exists to promote, sometimes in ‘jokey’ form, extreme Stalinist-nationalist politics (this same week, for instance, praise for the USSR’s “democracy” under Stalin’s purges). It often engages in racism, sexism and homophobia, and personal bullying, all from behind a curtain of anonymity. It has targeted many anti-Stalinist, internationalist and critical- minded left-wingers — socialist organisations including AWL and Plan C, various organisations of oppressed groups, and numerous individuals, including comrades as young as fifteen. Moreover, the kind of stuff this foul group promotes and popularises has a wider impact, poisoning the political envi - ronment of the left — particularly as it has the tacit and not so tacit support of some relatively prominent Labour leftists. The longer it goes without being strongly challenged the worse it will get. To start with, this latest vile abuse must not be tolerated. We call for the attack to be taken down, and will take further action. We call on the whole left to condemn such shameful behaviour.

• The Clarion’s labour movement statement against Red London: theclarionmag.org/2018/11/13/ fight-red-london-and-the-politics-it-represents 4 Against the AWL Posts below are explained in the introductory text of this briefing.

1a. Above. From October 2016: a false FB identity links Mark Osborn to an invented paedophile rally.

2. Pseudo-quotes from articles used alongside a picture of Sacha Ismail’s head (quotes not from Sacha) to “prove” that AWL is in favour of paedophilia.

1b. Edit history (above) shows how Red London names Mark Osborn, then removes his name and refers to him as employed by a Lewisham Primary school. (Not true, Mark is a secondary school 3. Above, another racist image: a dark-skinned teacher, and not in Lewisham.) The text about boy - person holds the hand of a white child. The quote cotting anti-war demonstrations and calling a spe - is from a 2003 article in which the author referred cial conference and PIE is completely invented. to a conference in the early 1980s which someone had told her about from memory. 5 4. Defending how Red London made fun of a 15-year old’s fundraising effort (a sponsored dog walk).

6. Pseudo-report above of a Lewisham Momentum meeting supporting trans rights and reform of the Gender Recognition Act. Report appears on “Check Their Minutes” blog associated with the Red London clique.

5. On Saturday 3 February 2018, the AGM of London Young Labour discussed a motion re - lating to an anonymous report of sexual as - sault on an ex-member of Workers′ Liberty by another ex-member. The report, made in 2018, referred to events which took place in 2005 when the victim was 16. The motion contained statements not made in the original claim and referred to Workers’ Liberty as a “secretive, top down organisation” despite our open 7. Tweet above from a committee member of processes of investigation. Lewisham Young Labour about the AWL, prior “CheckTheirMinutes” blog created an at - mosphere of factionalised venom against to the AGM of Lewisham Momentum, calling Workers’ Liberty members and people per - us everything she can think of short of mur - ceived to be connected with us who were (as derers. Note the retweet from ‘London Young can be seen above) all assumed to be mem - Left’ an account which used to retweet Red bers of the AWL. London material but was recently taken down. 6 8. How Red London celebrated the hostile mo - bilisation against “the Trots” at Lewisham Mo - mentum AGM.

10. Mocked up Facebook identity and status, to produce a “joke” linking the AWL with the “Soham murderer”.

11. After being part of a group abused at a pub in south London by people associated with Red London for being “paedos” etc, a comrade jokes on Twitter that he will learn Kravmaga (a martial art) to defend himself. This is how Red London respond. Making fun 9. Above, how others, taking their lead from of the comrade’s rainbow braces, calling him them and Aaron Bastani (who coined the a freak and a nonce. Unambiguous hashtag, LewishamSpring), celebrated the homophobic abuse. result of the Lewisham Momentum election.

7 Attacks on AWL continue Content warning: disturbing sexual content

Above: how Red London’s fabrications are taken up and used in Facebook exchanges.

Above: Red London make jokey references to violence and threats to come to and attack our meetings etc.

8 More against Sacha Ismail as in the faked images above.

Red London’s approach to issue of child abuse

Post sharing an article from the Morning Star . And right, how Red London followers deal with criticism of this approach — with jokes, by carelessly calling people “pedo” (sic) and by using the word as a swear word. 9 Who are Red London?

Because Red London is an anonymous Facebook page it is impossible to know who they are. From posts, likes and comments on the page we know that it is followed by activists in the RMT and Momentum. As we said earlier, RMT organiser Bill Paterson (picture 1), who is also co-chair of Lewisham Momentum, admitted to involvement in 2015. The picture is of a jokey conversation on Facebook with an AWL member. Bill Paterson was more friendly to the AWL at the time, and was playing up to a “hard man” image. In 2016 he told police he was no longer connected to Red London. We also recognise the image of the man in the red balaclava (picture 2) as Patrick Smith formerly Hull North Labour Party Secretary — he is more recognisable in other pictures by his tattoos. He is holding up a Stalinist manual against fascists from the 1930s, “Clear them out”. It is now used in reference to Trotskyists along with the “vigilance finger”. Since a recent falling out of people in Lewisham Momentum (see a public Facebook “statement” by Rae C Lewis, here: http://bit.ly/2ScmCNC) other people have been identified: • Dom Cerasoli, who promotes Bashar al-Assad’s regime (see this blog post about Cerasoli, and others by BobFromBrockley http://brockley.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-return-of-stalinism-on-british-left.html). • Robert Daw (picture 3), who is pictured at the front in the right hand picture at the London 2018 May Day demonstration. The picture is taken from Red London and lauds the notorious presence of many images of Stalin on that demo and makes fun of the precarious workers bloc on the same demonstration. • Sandy Hale (centre and indicated on picture 4, of RMT activists). Hale, who is also known as Alex Norton and writes for the Morning Star, is said to be central to and have the longest association with Red London.

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10 “Vigilance” Since c. 2017 Momentum and Young Labour activists have shared photos of themselves all over social media doing the cultish “vigilance” finger salutes — sometimes pictured with well-known and promient Labour figures. This was cer - tainly popularised by Red London. For some is merely a bit of relatively harmless tribalism, a reference to being “vigilant” for the Jeremy Corbyn leadership. For others it is a reference to Stalinist campaigns against Trotskyists and other criti - cal-minded radical leftists during the murderous period of high Stalinism in the 30s and 40s – the injunction to be “vigilant” against anti-Stalinist socialists was linked to slogans such as “Treat a Trotskyist as you would a fascist”.

members. Red London’s favoured “hate targets” are Trotskyists, anarchists and “Radical Liberals”. “RadLibs” are people who are tagged with caricatured identity politics and support for “political correctness”. This hostile positioning involves no useful critique, rather it is a way to promote an anti-liberal (small “l”) and “masculine” politics. Akin to trolling, their attacks come out as piss- taking banter and/or working-class identity politics including a more disturbing “hard man” imagery, and gratuitous viciousness. We are politically concerned by the growing audience for the idea that murderous totalitarian Stalinist regimes both historically and in the contemporary world are somehow authentically socialist. However, as unpleasant as that is, most of that kind of material can be political critiqued. In contrast, since 2016 the group have made a specific attack on Workers’ Liberty which is straightforward defamation, accusing us of vile and criminal activity. Through the medium of meme-making and “jokes” and often by direct accusation, Workers’ Liberty have been accused of condoning or even actively promoting paedophilia or child abuse. This accusation is ludicrous, without foundation. Whoever is responsible for this is engaging in reckless behaviour. Yet the accusation has been shared, promoted and cynically used in one form or another by others and the “story” has spread. Why do these ridiculous stories work? Because they speak to a sectarian mindset on the broader left that allows Trotskyists, or the AWL, or others, to be lied about without consideration for the consequences. The AWL has taken action to defend itself by reporting these defamations to Facebook, the police and the Labour Party, and now by publishing this briefing. If would be negligent not to take action to protect ourselves, and especially because many of us are parents, teachers, social workers, youth workers and have experienced sexual abuse in our lives. Our complaints have been obstructed by the fact that Red London’s output has been anonymously produced and that a

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Stalinist politics and culture

Showing the general political culture of the page including what their followers say: being hard men, the popularity of the red balaclava, praising Putin’s regime, lauding Stalinists in the Labour Party, promoting English nationalism and anti- Trotskyism.

Continued on next page Contemporary Stalinism 12 FB group often shared by Red London. Reference to 1930s anti-Trotskyism where Trotskyists were called social-fascists.

The milieu. Above references to a meeting of Momentum Youth and Students (now shut down) when bags were searched for Anti-fascism, English nationalism and “hostile- white man identity politics. decadent” literature.

13 Red London against “rad libs” Hating identity politics, making fun of “queer”. A vision of the working class which is white, straight and male.

Continued on next page 14 15 Against anarchists... and everyone else

16 Miscellaneous “banter”

“Hong”? Red London indulge in racism

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